


i've been known to bite

by freakedelic



Category: DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Actual Rape/Non-con, Angst, Brainwashing, Captor/Captive, Collars and leashes, Dark, Dehumanization, Drabble Collection, Fluff, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mindbreak, Non-Consensual Groping, Psychological Trauma, Renegade - Freeform, Robin Suffers, Sexual Slavery, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Warnings by chapter, Whump, cameos by other characters, sexy videos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 16:34:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16162697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freakedelic/pseuds/freakedelic
Summary: XI. Slammed Into A Wall -Robin escapes, but not unscathed.Never unscathed.





	1. Take Me Instead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for braingray on tumblr!  
> warnings: v mild implied/referenced noncon

Starfire doesn’t scream.

She’s better than that - a warrior, trained in ways only Robin out of the team can even hope to compare to. That doesn’t mean that Robin can’t see the way she gulps as the razor edge of Slade’s knife rests against her jugular or the way she shies away from his leather clad touch.

“How good to see you, Robin,” Slade says, the casual air of violence that characterizes his tones unmistakable. “Seems you’re missing someone.”

Robin knows Slade speaks of Starfire but he can’t help but curse that Raven and Cyborg split to check the other part of the base - against situations like this, Raven would be ideal.

Beast Boy takes a threatening step forward. Robin sees his brow start to recede in the typical beginnings of a change. Before he can say something, Slade does.

“Ah, ah, ah, little hero.” Fingers close around Starfire’s neck and shoulder. The knife shines against hued skin. “I’ve heard a throat is necessary for living, even with aliens like this one.”

Beast Boy growls in a particularly beast-like way, bearing pointed teeth. His feet stop, and after a pause, he looks to Robin.

Robin tries his best to quell his panic as the situation sets in - Slade. Starfire. Slade’s knife against Starfire, once again the threat of death hanging over his friends by the most competent villain in Jump City.

He steadies his voice. “What do you want, Slade?” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Starfire’s hand start to move, out of Slade’s view.

“Many, many, things,” Slade admits. “But right now, if you would be so kind as to stay well away from me and my hostage -”

Starfire’s hand glows and Slade notices a second too late. She yells in fury, pulling herself away from him as he dodges a vicious starbolt. Robin lunges forward, Beast Boy on his heels, but they’re stopped by the opening of panels on either side, sladebots pouring out in their perfect rows. Starfire and Slade disappear behind them as they charge, still fighting.

“I’ll go after them,” Robin commands brusquely. “You take care of the ‘bots.” Beast Boy nods his approval before diving in, completing his change into a furious lion. Robin doesn’t stay to watch, confident in his friend’s abilities. He vaults over ‘bots and fights them off skillfully with his staff, catching sight of orange and black as the two people fight. He desperately pushes ‘bots aside as he draws closer, one or two landing painful hits on him in his hurry.

He passes through the lines barely in time to see Starfire keel over into Slade’s gloved arms. Robin makes brief eye contact with Slade, feels the smirk behind the mask.

Slade steps backwards into another opening compartment, dragging a half-conscious Starfire with him, and only Robin’s adrenaline lets him catch it before it closes. He stands pinned between violence and darkness, the side of the compartment that should be closing pressing down on him.

Robin sees Slade retreat as he presses with all his strength against the door. Starfire. He’s taking Starfire away to be his - apprentice? Something worse?

There is only one thing Robin knows for certain: he cannot let Slade get away with Starfire. He will not, cannot, let Kori suffer at Slade’s hands the way he has. Even if he managed to give her back he can’t take the risk, would never forgive himself.

It’s that thought that gives him the energy to slip into the darkness of the tunnel. His bo is caught inbetween, snapping with a sound like bone as the sliver of light disappears. Robin can’t be bothered to pay attention to it, running as fast as he can towards where he saw Slade leave Kori. Pale lights flicker on as he moves, revealing stark grey rock and metal.

“Starfire! STARFIRE!” His desperate yells echo off the walls. Robin spins around a corner, and there she is, blinking eyes open. He stops dead in his tracks at Slade, supporting her weight, knife held against her throat.

“Robin?” she murmurs.

“Star.” He takes a breath. “Star, look, we’re gonna get you out of this. I promise.”

Why does he feel like he’s reassuring himself instead of her?

“Really, Robin, I don’t think you’re in much of a position to be making promises,” Slade cuts in.

“What do you want with her?” Robin demands. His brain answers for him, unwanted memories dredged up - (presumably the same thing he wanted with you, a voice whispers.)

The thought makes him sick.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Slade looks down at her head condescendingly. “A chip off the block here, a sliver there - she’d make a fine apprentice, don’t you think?” Starfire struggles feebly as if in response. She must be concussed, at the very least.

“Don’t you dare.” Robin surprises himself with how steady his voice is. Fury spins through is mind as he watches Slade’s hands on her, stemming from something that he knows is pure terror.

“Empty platitudes don’t stop me, boy, as I’m sure you’re aware,” Slade sneers. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to.” He yanks Starfire back roughly, blade still glued to her jugular.

“NO!” Robin’s desperation comes through and he regrets it seconds later. He suspects he’s playing right into Slade’s hands but he can’t stop himself.

He’s never been able to stop himself, not when it comes to the lives of his friends. Slade knows that too damn well.

“‘No?’“ Slade mocks. “Well, what do you think you can do about it, Robin?”

Robin stares.

He sees the trap, sees the bait, both loud and clear as Slade’s voice. Painful anticipation rears its head and he pushes it down before it has the chance to turn to fear. Fear can’t help Starfire.

Then places his foot firmly in Slade’s perfectly designed trap with the resignation of a man going to his wall.

“It’s me you want, Slade. I’m here, you can have me. Just don’t -” his voice breaks, he presses on “- don’t take Star. She’s not the target. Don’t - “ he doesn’t have the will to finish the sentence, simply staring at Slade. Slade doesn’t reply, and he feels panic rising in him -

“Please,” he begs.

“Smart boy,” Slade says finally. His words slide like oil over Robin, clinging to him. “Smart enough to know that if you try anything stupid, your girlfriend’s short of a breathing apparatus.”

“Yes,” Robin says. He steps forward and ice cold fear almost freezes him in place; he only manages another foot by staring at Starfire’s scared eyes. Relief is the balm that flows through him as she’s pushed aside in favor of a knife now pointed at Robin’s chin.

“Robin?” Star sounds confused, afraid - Robin stares at her, pretty and safe and alive, and he can’t stop the pang in his chest.

“You have to go now, Star,” he says gently. She braces herself against the wall with one hand, still weak from Slade’s blows.

“Robin, I simply cannot -”

“Leave,” he repeats, firmer now, eyes fixed on Slade’s emotionless mask. “Come back for me later.”

He hears Slade’s soft laugh beneath his mask. His fear intensifies.

“Robin-”

“LEAVE!” Robin snarls, eyes fixed on Slade, pressure thrumming through his veins. Starfire hesitates and then her light fades down the tunnel, leaving them in near-darkness. Slade doesn’t bother to watch her leave either, the point of the knife digging into the soft skin under his chin.

(anything is better than Slade’s fingers against him)

“How … heroic,” Slade mocks. He sounds pleased with himself. Why does he always sound so goddamn pleased with himself?

“Shut up, Slade.” Something catches in his throat, makes him sound rough and choked.

“Oh, Robin, that’s no way to talk to your new master, now is it?” Slade gloats. The tip of the knife forces its way upward, forcing Robin to look up at Slade as he straightens.

Master.

And Robin the apprentice, once again.

Robin tries, shamefully, to shut his eyes against the reality. It can’t save him.

His friends - they can. They might be able to get him out of this. Drag him away before Slade can inflict too much damage.

Release a second time seems almost too much to ask of cruel fate, something he’s too goddamn unlucky for. Even so -

it’s his only hope.


	2. Crying Into Chest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> requested by anonymous and skeletoncloset!  
> warnings: fluff, abusive relationships, graphic violence

The small light in the warehouse gleams off of the perfectly clean, perfectly polished blade. It seems to hang in the air for an eternity, a photo taken and hung in a gallery -

Renegade: The Collection, perhaps.

It falls, cutting easily through cartilage and veins. Robin can only stare into bulging eyes as the woman tries to claw at a throat that is no longer there. Blood spatters on his face, warm. She opens her mouth and screams nothing but gurgling crimson, vocal cords severed through.

Eternal seconds later, she falls just as surely as the blade, collapsing in a twitching mess on the dirty warehouse floor. Robin watches her fall as if in a trance, blood spurting every which way. He’s perversely reminded of helping Alfred in the garden with the hose as a child, high pressure liquid spilling over him. Slowly, his eyes twist to see the blade in his hands, the silver marred with slowly dripping blood. Red runs down the blade and coalesces at the tip, forming a drop that falls -

Except it doesn’t, splattered against the side of Robin’s uniform with the force of the blow that comes from the right. He’s thrown violently to the left, almost falling and relying only on his natural agility to catch himself. Slade stands there, tall and imposing and masked, a man bleeding from the head at his feet. Belatedly, Robin realizes that he was being attacked - that Slade had saved him. His brain processes the information but his body still doesn’t move, legs locked into place. Eyes stare vaguely out of a domino mask at Slade’s orange and black one.

The end of Slade’s staff taps on the warehouse floor, the other end grasped in his gloved hand. Robin feels blood run down his face, sticky and oily. A line of it travels over his top lip and beads there.

“What was that performance, boy?” Slade snaps. Robin can hear the danger in his tone and knows he should respond, but al he can do is open his lips a little bit of half an inch. Metallic blood spills over his tongue, all too familiar.

The woman’s blood.

The dead woman.

The dead woman he had killed. With his own hand.

Slade takes two quick steps forward before Robin can respond. The boy’s head jerks to the left in an explosion of pain. Blood drips down his chin. Slade’s hand hovers in the air in the aftermath of his blow.

“Answer me,” Slade commands harshly.

Robin stares up at him, feeling coldness make its way through his veins. He forces his jaws apart, his lips to move. “I-I-” He’s hyperventilating, unable to speak. He twists his hand, holding the bloodied knife pathetically out towards Slade, willing him to understand. Something pools behind his eyes. “I- she -”

Robin stares at the floor where she lays not several feet away from him, blood spattered over her half-uniform, pooled around her head and shoulders. Slade follows his sightline, taking a relieving step away from Robin to get a look at her.

“She’s dead,” he observes. “You killed her.”

Tears are pricking behind Robin’s eyes and he’s too far gone to care. He feels his fingers curl harshly into fists. “She was - she was just - ” He takes a barely steadying breath. “You MADE me!” Anger fills him with nowhere to go. He stomps his foot hard into the ground. The little pain he feels in response is good enough. “You MADE me kill her!”

Slade turns back to him. “Don’t be stupid,” he says contemptously. Fingers close around Robin’s wrist, turning the bloodied blade up for him to see. “This was all you, boy. See?”

Robin looks down and sees the blood. Anger seeps away as suddenly as it was born. His fingers open violently. The blade clatters to the floor, Slade smartly moving a boot half an inch to avoid it. The boy’s breaths begin to come in rough gasps.

The woman falls to the ground. Her blood covers him again. His blade, his hand.

His fault.

Tears spill over, still trapped by his mask. They fog up the view until he can see nothing but blurred black and orange and splattered red. Every part of his body shakes.

Dead. My fault.

Robin grabs for something, anything, hands landing on the man in front of him as he pushes himself forward. Slade stiffens as the boy grabs onto him, sobs wracking his small body. Robin’s head only comes up to his chest. His forehead and half of his face press against Slade’s armor, fists clinging to Slade’s arm and shoulder.

Slade relaxes, and seconds later Robin feels a heavy hand on his shoulder. It’s warm and comforting and he relishes it. The seconds hand rests against his neck. His chin is pressed back to look up into Slade’s still-masked face, tears beginning to eke their way out of his mask.

Any humiliation he might have felt at the display of emotion is drowned in his distress. Robin is perfectly docile as Slade peels off his Renegade mask, letting salty tears flow freely down his cheeks, making paths through the blood. A leather-clad thumb wipes at the liquid under his eyes and he leans into it with an almost inaudible whimper of relief.

“It gets easier,” Slade promises, low and familiar. “You did well.” His hand moves back to thread its way through Robin’s hair. Robin buries his face back in Slade’s chest, smearing him with tears and blood. Fingers move soothingly through his hair. “It’s alright, pet,” Slade murmurs.

Robin sniffs, fingers digging into any purchase he can find. Slade is grounding, comforting, fingers splayed in Robin’s messed hair.

He stays there, clinging desperately to Slade, for a long time.


	3. Humiliation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anonymous on tumblr! :3c  
> warnings: implied/referenced/threatened/past rape/non-con, dehumanization, collars and leashes

Robin bares his teeth in a mockery of a cornered animal. It’s all the resistance he dares show to his master, especially with fingers so close to his throat. One wrong word and he could be seeing stars against the wall, coming to seconds later with Slade’s boot on his chest.

“Don’t like it, pet?” Slade’s tone is mocking and amused. His fingers snap the buckle into place and Robin has to cross his eyes to see silver gleaming right in front of his chin. The man’s fingers thread back along the leash now attached to Robin’s collar, fabric spooling over his hand. Robin’s head is moved forward a few inches as Slade pulls. “Just be glad I let you wear  _anything at all_ ,” he murmurs in the boy’s ear. Robin flinches away but is caught again by his collar. Slade laughs cruelly.

Robin follows obediently through the next familiar rooms, trying to walk fast enough to keep slack in his lead.

This isn’t the worst thing Slade has done to him - not by a long shot. The near constant bruises and aches covered by his Renegade uniform attest to that. Robin thinks it might be the most  _degrading_ , though. A testament to Slade’s perceived victory over his mind and body, a lingering statement:  _I own you_.

He doesn’t notice his hands curling into fists at his sides.

I am Robin.

I am Dick Grayson.

I am a goddamn  _human being_.

He shouldn’t have to remind himself of something so basic, so intrinsic, but Slade seems intent on stripping everything away, from his dignity to his name to his virtue. It’s all just a sick game to him.

Slade’s throne -  _seat_ , Robin reminds himself harshly, Slade’s not a god or a king, just a man - stands imposing as ever in the middle of the room, surrounded by screens and softly moving gears. He doesn’t have to drag Robin along with him as he sits - Robin’s learned by now that causing extra trouble will only cause more meaningless pain.

Something aches in him at his own compliance, but he pushes it down with all he’s worth.

Slade sprawls himself lazily on his seat, one hand on the armrest and elbow on his knee. Master of the world and of his house, almost completely at ease. Robin imagines kicking him in the face, and the thought almost makes him feel better. Instead, he just stands stock still in front of Slade.

It doesn’t come. Instead, the backs of his knees are kicked out from under him and he falls unceremoniously to the ground, a small sound of distress not quite muffled in time. He’s sprawled, knees slightly spread, and he knows better than to stand up even as they smart with pain.

“On your knees, boy. Where you belong.” The leash drags Robin across the dirty floor, palms becoming smeared with dirt. He kneels next to Slade’s right thigh, docile and compliant and burning with humiliation, and he hates himself for it. He turns his head defiantly away from Slade, staring at the grey-black ground and his own pale fingers curled on his knees.

Slade doesn’t really touch him for the next few minutes, Robin’s only reminder the man is there a tugging as he shifts the leash in his fingers. He’s most likely working on something but Robin can’t bring himself to stare up at the imposing figure.

The only sound is the gears for what seems to be minutes on end, and then suddenly Slade is flicking a switch and one of the large screens around the place switches on. Robin raises his head from where it had hung fixed on the floor to see someone staring in from what he knows is one of the security cameras outside the compound. For the first time, Robin stares up at Slade, horror written large on his face. Slade notices his staring.

“Seems I have a visitor,” he notes casually. Robin’s eyes widen as spins to see the wall opening, letting him inside. He looks back up at Slade. Something coils cold and ugly in his gut.

“You - you’re not …”

“What is it, pet?” Slade sneers. “I shouldn’t show off my  _spoils_?”

Robin shakes his head, all sense leaving him. Slade - bowing to Slade is one thing, a horror he’s familiar with, but -

the thought of anyone  _seeing_  him like this, bound and compliant and  _owned_  -

“Please -”

Slade jerks the leash forward in one rough motion, fingers closing vicelike on Robin’s chin. His voice is low and threatening. “I could have you suck me off right here, right in front of him. Spill myself  _all over_  that pretty little face of yours.” A thumb brushes Robin’s cheek. “Show him what you really are, hm?”

Robin chokes at the concept and he knows heat is rising to his face. Slade releases him, pain fading from his face, and he knows that it will bruise. He’s kept at Slade’s side by the leash.

The door opens and he shudders, wishing he could skitter away like one of the cockroaches that haunts his room. He tries not to look at the figure but sees him anyways; it takes a second to recognize Dr. Light out of costume, even as he casts his gaze away.

And if he recognizes Dr. Light -

“Is that  _Robin_?”

Robin wants to cry. He feels the tears pricking at the edges of his eyes and fights them back with all the resolve left in him. Blinking quickly, he can’t even make himself look up, can’t even truly face his position.

“Not anymore,” Slade says casually. Fingers knot painfully in Robin’s hair and his head is yanked upwards, revealing a face red with humiliation. “Let him get a good look at you, pet.”

Robin stares at Light - such a stupid, incompetent man, now privy to the Boy Wonder’s greatest defeat. He feels something run down his cheek and realizes he’s crying.

Robin knows how he looks, half in costume and half out, stained with dirt from the floor, knees slightly spread. He kneels at Slade’s feet, kept like a dog on a leash. Bruises and suck marks and bitten skin are Slade’s handiwork on him, evidence of Slade’s constant use. It couldn’t be more obvious what he is -

A beaten, broken hero. A slave. A pet.

A goddamned  _toy_.


	4. Made A Slave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His fate is worse than he ever could have imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anonymous on tumblr!!  
> contains: threats/future/referenced noncon, nonconsensual kissing and groping, sexual references, Robin is Sad™️ and Tortured™️

The chains against limbs conduct the cold too well. Robin’s given up his furious rubbing at his shoulders to chase the chill away, instead curled in a small corner of the cell. The bone deep pain isn’t enough to chase away his worries about his friends - he hasn’t seen Raven since the ‘birth’ of Trigon, doesn’t know what happened to Cyborg and Beast Boy.

He prays that they’re safe, anxiety eating away at him just as surely as the cold. His own fate is more uncertain, more terrifying than he cares to admit to himself

Are they going to drag him out, slit his throat and let his blood spill for another sick sacrifice? Are they going to keep him in here forever, letting him rot away in the darkness?

When the door opens, it’s not Trigon or one of his demonic minions, it’s someone he almost doesn’t recognize. The man stands tall, his obviously expensive suit jarring in the ugly atmosphere of the cell. White hair rests on his shoulders, and his left eye -

_It can’t be._

He’s just showing his face now, after all this time? After all the hours and pain and work Robin has put in to trying to find his face, see what’s under his mask?

“Hello, Robin.”

It’s a voice that haunts his nightmares, a timbre he will never forget. Slade simply leans in the doorway, one hand resting in his pocket, regarding the bound boy.

Robin rises instantly, the chains clanking and weighing him down. He stands as tall and proud as he can as he faces his enemy.

“Slade.”

They stare at each other. Slade’s eye is a surprising bright blue as he leisurely takes Robin in. It reminds him of Bruce, focused and dangerous, but it … lacks something Bruce never lost, a vibrancy and an emotion and a humanity. The expression in it is something Robin has never seen before so undisguised, something he can’t  _quite_  put his finger on.

It makes him feel exposed and horribly uneasy.

“I’ve waited for this moment for a long time, Robin,” Slade says, stepping forward. Robin tenses, but he’s not in range, not with how thoroughly the chains secure the boy to the wall.

“Where are my friends?” Robin asks, doing his best to ignore the man.

“Dead,” Slade says offhandedly.

Robin flinches.

“Are you here to kill me?” He imbues his voice with as much strength as he can, fighting down his pain.

“No,” Slade muses. “No, I don’t think so. After all …” He steps in, and suddenly he’s close, towering over Robin in perfectly tailored horror. “… it’d be a shame to let that pretty little body of yours go to  _waste_.”

Robin’s stomach drops out from under him as he’s pinned by Slade’s gaze. Fear seems to freeze in his veins, dread and uncertainty and  _he can’t be - he can’t mean -_

Fingers tilt his chin up. Robin’s aware of his own shallow breathing as he stares into a smooth, almost handsome face, marred by only an eyepatch.

The second hangs in the air.

WIthout warning lips are pressing against his, hot and demanding. Robin takes a step back in shock but he’s followed smoothly. A tongue presses past his teeth, stubble scratching his chin. Hands grip his shoulders and back.

Slade tastes of mint and smells of a pine aftershave, and it makes Robin sick to his stomach. He tries to get his hands up to push the man off but his wrists are yanked back by the chains. Seconds of suffocation later Slade pulls back.

A disgustingly satisfied look characterizes his face as he slowly licks his lips. Robin splutters. He finds he’s shaking, from fear or shock or grief he can’t tell.

He now recognizes the look in the man’s eye as  _lust_.

“You-You’re not going to kill me. You’re going to  _rape_  me.”

Not a question.

“Yes,” Slade agrees.

“And then?”

“And then I’m going to do it again.” A pause. “I’m never going to let you go, Robin.” A hand reaches out, tracing down Robin’s stained and dirty face, skin on hateful skin. Robin shudders away from it, feeling his breathing become quicker, the fear become more present.

“And you - you would’ve done it before, when-”

Slade shrugs. “Eventually. When you were an apprentice, I had other priorities. But now …” He tilts his head, examining the boy in front of him. “There’s nobody left to fight. All I need is a slave to warm my bed.”

Robin shakes his head, the situation setting in, trying to back up as much as he can but only running into the wall. The chains clink at his nonverbal refusal as he tries to distance himself as much as can from the man in front of him, the man who fully intends every horrible thing he says with such casual satisfaction.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Slade snaps. “I’m doing you a favor. You would be joining your friend in death if it weren’t for me.”

“Maybe I  _want_ to,” Robin tells him. He can’t stop his voice from breaking. What else is left for him, without his team? Slade’s sick idea of mercy?

Slade’s fingers land on his chest, pressing him back, pinning him. He should be able to away as his back presses against the wall. Instead, his blood freezes as he stares up at Slade, breathing shallow. Something seems to press on his chest and he can’t make himself move as Slade’s fingers trail warmth down over his abs, palm on his stomach -

“Please, Slade,” Robin whispers.

Strong fingers hook into his belt and he squeezes his eyes shut. He feels warm breath on his face as he’s pressed against the wall, trying against his own body to move his face away. Slade takes advantage, and seconds later teeth bite into the side of his neck, sending shocks down his nerves.

Robin whimpers.

Slade’s hand slips under his belt, hot against his skin, moving towards his back. Robin is forced to twist his head to accommodate Slade’s mouth nipping its way down the ridge of his neck. Slade his twice his size, pinning him hopelessly to the wall, taking and taking. He scent drowns out the one of the scell, his suit smooth against Robin’s exposed skin.

He can’t stifle another small noise as Slade grasps at his ass, hard and bruising, the other hand pressed against the side of his chest, forming what may as well be a cage. Robin feels something dig into his thigh, and he knows if he looks down he will see Slade half hard against him.

Just when Robin is sure he can’t bear a second more the fingers and hands and tongue recede with a snap of fabric. The solemn, hated man regards him, fingers now dancing along his chin.

“Would it be so terrible, Robin?” he asks, almost gently. “I’m not a cruel master.” His fingers tighten almost imperceptibly. “Not unless you give me reason.”

Robin simply stares up at him hopelessly. The chains hang heavy on his neck and shoulders, as inescapable a fate as the man in front of him. Slade’s fingers leave him at last, the man turning to go -

“I’ll be back for you. I just need to … finalize some ownership details first.”

The door slams.

Slade’s scent still lingers despite the relief of the cold. His touch lingers and Robin desperately wants to scour his skin free of it. Despair washes over him painful waves, and yet he knows this likely the only peace he will ever get from Slade for the rest of his life.

As he curls in on his body and cries gasping tears for his friends and himself, he wishes for nothing more than to escape it.


	5. Touch Starved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows his place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains: abusive relationships, abuse, my version of fluff u know the one  
> requested by anonymous and thotsyndrome on tumblr!!

"And?"

Robin studies the map in front of him, the twisting streets highlighted and annotated according to their relevance. A slim finger traces hesitantly. "The apartment is a probably bad idea. Too many people to wake up. We could go for the shop because, um, there most likely won't be anyone around . . . but it's near the convenience store, so - the restaurant?" He looks at expectantly Slade, who leans over the table and stares down at the plan.

"You're forgetting something," Slade reprimands flatly.

Robin feels a stab of embarrassment. He furiously studies the map, terribly cognizant of Slade's eyes boring into him. "Oh." He winces at his own failure. "Oh, right." He'd been ignoring the second route the shipment was going to take. "The office rise. On 36th." A pause. "Right?"

"Correct." Relief fills Robin. Slade's hand moves down the map, almost brushing Robin's. Robin fists his fingers together, moving them to the side, and he feels himself resent the lack of contact. He buries his hand under the table on his thigh. Slade traces the route. "We'll be able to get at the cargo if we can't stop it in the tunnel or at the checkpoint, which is a potential outcome. Always go for the easiest way between two points."

Robin stares down at his hands. "Sorry," he murmurs.

Slade makes a sour mm noise that Robin knows means displeasure and indifference. Slade straightens, stepping away from the table. Robin's nails spike curls of pain in his fists at his own own distress.

"Why are you doing this?" He asks suddenly, eyeing Slade. The man turns slightly to face Robin.

"It's in the contract, boy."

"Obviously it's not that." Robin can't seem to help his mouth from speaking. "It's - they're not paying you anything. Or not much."

"I have my reasons."

Robin has spent so much time learning the danger in Slade's voice that he knows it. He's still stupid enough to ignore it. "What, some kind of assassin's - what, word? You're doing this all for some stupid word or -"

He stops short as Slade's shadow falls over him, his breath hitching in fear. He's gone too far, too much, and he curses his own words.

"Stand up," Slade commands. Robin's knees move without his volition. He snaps up to face Slade, already staring shamefully at the floor. He can feel Slade near him, large and imposing.

The side of his face explodes in sharp pain and his head  snaps to the side. His hands fist but don't move. Slade lower his hand. "Do you know what that was for?"

Robin feels tears bead in his eyes. Shame overcomes him. "Talking back," he mumbles, eyes still fixed on Slade's shoes. The side of his face burns.

"You know your place, boy."

Robin's eyes are fixed on the floor. "Yes, Master."

"Good. I hope you don't forget it again." Slade suddenly recedes, moving back, starting to move around the table. Robin feels something constrict, can't help himself -

His hand grabs at Slade, closing around the shirt he wears - white and starch.

  
Slade turns to look at him, and Robin releases it instantly, realizing what he's done. He cringes away, not daring or not wanting to move away from Slade, instead standing and feeling terribly, horribly small. His hands come to his chest, almost shaking.

"Please - " he hears his voice crack, unsure what he's asking for. "Master -"

Slade's hand moves to touch his face and curl around his chin, still red and stinging from his reprimand. He sounds amused, less hard as he speaks. "What is it, pet?"

Robin stares at him, leaning in imperceptibly to the contact, relief filling him at the warmth against his skin. "I - " His eyes swim with tears and he has to stop his hand from moving up to hold onto Slade's wrist.

"Look at you," Slade murmurs with condescending amusement. His fingers slide down Robin's neck to hook around the ring of his collar, pulling him nearer. "You just want attention."

Robin steps closer easily, staring up at Slade. He feels his face burn with embarrassment. Knuckles brush against his face and he can't stop a small keen as he leans into it. 

"Do you think you deserve it, pet?" Slade asks. Robin can't help the fear as his eyes widen. Hands come up to rest against Slade's chest, voice cracking again.

"Master- please -"

Slade laughs, as if it was a joke. "On your knees."

Robin drops with relief to the ground. Slade pulls at one of the chairs at the table and sits, his knees coming up to Robin's head. Robin kneels between Slade's legs. 

After a second puts an elbow over Slade's thigh and rests his head on it. He can see the creased fabric that tucks into Slade's belt with the tilt of his head. Slowly, he feels the tension drain out of him. He's comfortable here at his master's feet, natural, safe. It's his place, after all, where he belongs - Slade's taught him that. Robin's eyes drift shut. Slade's fingers drift through his hair as the man resumes his work, Robin making a small contented noise.

Slade laughs. "Such a needy little thing."


	6. Whipping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> requested by anonymous on tumblr dot com!  
> contains: graphic violence, themes of rape and abuse, general nastiness on slade’s part (but what did we except uwu)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested by anonymous on tumblr dot com!

Robin shrieks. The air shreds his dry throat as it’s pushed out of his lungs, every muscle tensing as the force of the blow sends him swinging on his chains. His legs burn as he tries almost in vain to keep his toes balanced on the stone floor. Blood and saliva trickle down his chin, metallic in his mouth.

“Fifteen,” Slade says smoothly from behind him, with the air of a man completely at ease. Robin stares at the blood pooling underneath him on the ground as he hears footsteps. Seconds later the steel toes of Slade’s boots come into focus, and he follows them up an orange and black monster to a cool, emotionless mask.

If Robin tore it off, he doesn’t think the expression underneath would be any different.

Fingers grasp at his chin, smearing blood. The mask takes up his area of vision, too close, too terrifying. “What do we say, boy?”

Robin’s body screams with pain, where his wrists are suspended by manacles to where his barely holds his body up on his toes, but most of all in the trails of agony that crisscross his back.

He tends the hate that burns in his gut, forcing it to flare enough to give him will to resist. His mouth is too dry to spit in Slade’s face, so he simply growls with all the loathing he has in him. “Go to  _hell_.” His voice is dry and cracked and pathetic in the cell, but it rings with real emotion.

Slade makes a condescending little  _tsk_  noise, as if he’s reprimanding a naughty child. “I see you haven’t learned your lesson, then.”

His footsteps recede, and all at once Robin’s fire falls. He’s left sobbing slightly at the pain he knows will come, and he doesn’t know how much more he can take.

The whip cracks, and every cell of his body flinches seconds before it tears him open again. This time, Robin’s scream is devoid of any true noise, only painful air hissing through his throat.

“One.”

_Crack!_

Robin is forced forward by the strength of the strike, scrabbling madly to catch again his balance on the floor. Instead he slips, letting out a small yell as his wrists take the brunt of his body weight.

“Two.”

The next strike comes before he gains purchase and he’s pushed forward again, joints screaming, writhing in the agony that comes with the whip -

“Please,” he finds himself whimpering.

“Three.”

He’s torn again. He cries out again. Something runs down his leg. He could have wet himself, but it’s just as likely to be the blood coursing from his bare back down the length of his body.

He finds his balance -

“Four.”

 - he loses his balance. Tears cut paths of blood along his face as he scrambles, so much weaker this time, perhaps dizzy from the blood loss. Every part of him is sticky and screaming with pain.

“Five.”

Pain erupts. Robin chokes on his own blood as he bites down. It dribbles down his chin. He only hears the crack of the whip, feels the crack of pain, thinks he feels it contact bone.

He gives up trying to find balance, wrists blazing with agony, the whip pushing him forward with its inevitable momentum. He chokes again, gasping for breath, trying to scream out of sheer instinct.

The whip comes to meet what’s left of his shredded skin again, and again, and again. All Robin can do is shudder and cry with every strike, twitching limply like a broken marionette under Slade’s brutal punishment. The crack in the air blurs with the rushing in his ears and his own screams of pain, every gasping breath another plea for mercy.

When it finally, eternally ends, he’s left staring at crimson on the ground, doing his best to find his footing once again. Breaths come heavy and dry but welcome.

Slade’s fingers tilt up his chin almost gently. “Do you know what you did to deserve this?”

 _Nothing_.

Robin did  _nothing_  wrong.

He simply protected himself. 

But he can’t even will the words to come or muster up a snarl, tears still pouring down his cheeks. He can’t even imagine how pathetic he must look.

What’s left of his dignity melts away under his pain and despair. He knows what Slade wants to hear. “I -” His mouth is parched, it hurts to speak. “I fought you.”

Slade’s head tilts. “That’s right. You disobeyed me. Tell me, pet, are you sorry?”

Robin’s need to please him, his fear of the pain that throbs in every muscle lending desperation to his words. “ _Yes._ ”

“Tell me so.”

He obeys without a thought. “I’m sorry.”

Slade’s thumb brushes over his split, bitten lip, almost gently. “You need to learn your lesson. You belong to  _me_. Every last little  _bit_  of you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, master.” The honorific is off his tongue, natural, before he can stop it, and self loathing stews in his gut. 

Slade leans in. His fingers tighten. “And if I tell you to get on your back and spread your legs, what do you say?”

Robin trembles under Slade’s fingers. Pain defines his existence. Slade defines his existence. Another tear rolls down his dirty face. “Yes, master,” he whispers.

His voice is empty, hopeless. Dead.

Slade straightens. “Good. We have some unfinished business, then.”

Robin whimpers audibly. He doesn’t have strength to fight back as Slade laughs, low and almost friendly. “If you’d been a good little  _whore_  and obeyed me, this would all be over by now. Instead, well - “ Robin can’t see him, but he knows Slade’s mocking half shrug like the man’s horrible mask “ - I’m still  _hard_ , Robin, and this pretty scene hasn’t done anything to dissuade me.”

 _Slade always finds a way to get sicker_ , Robin thinks, almost detached. He’s not sure why it would surprise him anymore, after everything. The horror that is his captor has become a constant, aching presence in his excuse for a life - no action too depraved, no fate too horrible for Slade to inflict on him.

Slade’s punishment is almost fair, carried out with a vicious precision and brutality at every rebellion, carefully calculated to keep him in his place - on his knees, on his back, at Slade’s feet.

Someday, he thinks (he knows), he will get used to it all, the slavery and the rape and the pain. He will fold under Slade’s brutal touches and exacting blade. He will become Slade’s  _good little whore_.

The horror of never fighting again is in its comfort.


	7. Lifted by the Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lifted by the neck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested by my brain because im horny and i want robin to suffer!!! also thanks to ren for inspiration.  
> contains: nsfw obviously, Very Extremely Nasty, mindbreak, brainwashing, humiliation, underage, noncon, hypothetical incest, choking. U W U

Robin stares after the child and chokes down a sob. She turns, eyes glancing over them, before leaving the room. The door closes loudly. Slade and Robin are left to sit as they always have, master and slave.

Everything hurts. Robin rubs his fingers in the dirt he sits in, and the tear that rolls down his face turns it to a small patch of mud.

“Do you remember what I told you about making noise?” Slade says from so far above, deceptively neutral.

Robin begins to nod and then he’s choking. Slade’s hand holds the leash too short, pulling him towards him. Robin’s jugular is cut off instantly. He gags and coughs. Fingers claw uselessly at his collar, the nubs of nails scraping painfully against the brass label. He tries desperately to get his feet under him, adrenaline pounding through every inch of his blood. Slade yanks the collar forward. Robin scrabbles for purchase.

Pale skin and white hair appear in front of his face, a pitiless blue eye. “Do I need to gag you again?” Robin gasps, stars dancing across Slade’s skin. Dark haired head shakes slightly; he remembers the gag, his mouth pried open to take Slade, everything dripping down his front.

Slade had gotten  _ideas_  that week.

Robin’s mouth opens like a fish out of water. He tries to enunciate the words, the apology, but nothing comes out.

Slade shakes him. Robin claws at his hand. “Nothing to say?” Amusement. "That’s what I thought.“

Robin is dropped onto the floor with bruising force. He gags and coughs, sucking in huge amounts of air as quickly as his lungs can take them in. Rasping sounds fill the air as he stares down at his own pale hands and Slade’s boots.

"I’m s-s-sorry, ma-master,” he whimpers as soon as he can form words. “S-so sorry. Please,” he coughs, “please, I-I’m sorry.  _Please_.”

All Slade does is shove his foot forwards between Robin’s hands. Robin doesn’t even have to look up as he lowers his face to the metal. He laps obediently at the steel with the feverishness of a terrified child. Tears streak his cheeks, adding to the shine that comes from the dirt and blood cleaned off of it. It’s sour in Robin’s mouth, but he barely tastes anymore. Barely feels.

The boot shines in the light, and Slade seems pleased with his submission. Robin stays there, knelt, sobbing. The leash trails between his arms and up to Slade’s palm, as it always does.

 _The child_.

A look of disgust, of horror, a recoil.

Robin sobs harder. Everything aches here, but this -

this is worse than anything he’s felt in a long time. Ever since he let his dignity fade into the constant humiliation. Some days he thinks he is too numb to cry, but he always finds a new way to be weak. He cries until his tears form a pool on the ground and he has to sniff as hard as he can to keep snot from joining it

“Something wrong, pet?” Slade asks casually.

Robin gasps, spit trailing from the edge of his mouth to the floor. He looks up at Slade, licking his lips -

“If you beg me again not to talk to my child,” Slade says dangerously, “You will eat nothing for the next week but the dirt off the bottom of my shoes.”

Robin shuts his mouth with an audible snap.

Slade isn’t kidding.

Slade glances down at him, amused. “I think you should have adjusted by now, hm?”

Robin stares at the ground, something inside him aching, and his hands curl to fists. He crawls forward, fingers making their way up Slade’s legs to his knees, head resting against the armor on his leg. It smells of polish and leather. It smells of Slade, and because of that, of Robin.

“I … I thought …” he shakes his head slightly. There’s a tug on his collar and he goes with it instantly, easily, feeling the bruises from the punishment. Slade tugs him up on his lap, barely able to straddle his thighs. Up here Robin can smell the aftershave he uses, something expensive that never seems to change. He hiccups. “I wanted …” He pries deep into himself, tugging at the pain with a shudder. “She - she looked like …” His hands rub at his face, getting it dirtier, trying to  _hide_. “Looked at me - like I … I hoped …”

“Oh, pet,” Slade says, “that’s  _precious_.” Robin stares up at him, almost afraid. “You didn’t really think someone would  _love_  you?”

Robin stares. His lip wobbles.

“Ohh.” Slade’s thumb rubs at his cheek. “You did, didn’t you?”

Robin stares into the cruel eyes. “I-I-I-I thought - I hoped - I wanted …”

“Have you  _seen_  yourself?”

Robin stares down at his uniform, streaked with dirt and blood and piss and cum and god knows what else, at his legs spread wide on Slade’s lap and the scars carved into the bare skin.

He doesn’t think he has any tears left as he hangs his head and  _oh_ , he learned this lesson so long ago with Bruce and the Titans and the way his filthy body betrays him.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

Why does it still hurt so badly?

“That’s right,” Slade murmurs. His fingers idly trace Robin’s neck, down the curve of his shoulder. “She wouldn’t even touch you. You’re lucky I do.”

Robin can feel his own filth crawling over his skin, a reminder of everything he  _is_.

Slade’s right. He’s  _always_  right. Robin  _is_  stupid.

He knows he’s unlovable, he  _knows_ , and yet some part of him will always want what he can’t have.

“Thank you,” he says softly, fingers splayed on Slade’s chest. He’s not sure what he’d do without him, without Slade’s body warm around him, without someone to cry into, someone to touch him and give him a  _purpose_  beyond existing.

Not love. He can’t be loved. But … a pretend-love, if he buries his face in Slade’s neck and imagines he has anything in him worth loving.

“You’re welcome,” Slade purrs. His skin lands on Robin’s hip, twisting into him and already going lower. Robin bites his lip against the teasing, fingers curling on Slade’s chest. He thinks of the child, pale hair and blue eyes (like Slade!), like Slade as she should be, perfect and wonderful and dangerous, and nothing like  _him_.

She deserves that much, not to be worthless and disgusting. 

“Please,” Robin says softly, silently, unable to meet Slade’s eyes - with more feeling than anything he thinks he’s ever felt in his life - “please don’t make her be like me.”

“Whore is a bit of a genetic trait, I think,” Slade says. “I didn’t  _make_  you into anything. I just showed you what you really were.”

His fingers trail lower, palm rubbing on Robin’s cock. Robin can’t stop himself from letting out a groan from the small contact, arching into Slade’s fingers.

Slade arches an eyebrow.  _I told you so_.

“I know,” Robin says, looking down from him to stare at his own burgeoning erection.  He raises his head, tears staining him. “Please don’t - please just -  I don’t …” his hands fist in Slade’s shirt. He starts to sob again. “You have  _me_ , I’m a stupid worthless slut, I belong to you, use me,  _please_ , just don’t - she’s not  _me_. She’s better than me, she’s yours, I … she doesn’t look like me, she looks like you, she acts like you” -  _a person_  - “she knows that I - that I’m a … that I’m  _useless_  …”

Slade presses his hand against Robin’s crotch with more force and Robin can’t help but whimper through his tears, moving closer into the pressure as best he can.

“As stupid as you are, pet, you’re not wrong. She’s my child, and my children … well, they’ll never be like  _you_.”

Robin blinks up at him, and for the first time in a long, long time, something curls in his chest that’s almost … relief.

She will look at him like he is worthless, because he is, and she will not love him, because he is unlovable, but …

 _She is not him_.

That is enough.

“Oh, and if you’re so eager to get fucked,” Slade murmurs in his ear, pushing him off the dais with bruising force, “then open your mouth.” Robin falls with a thump on his ankle and it sends pain through him, but he’s on his knees in seconds.

This time he will be  _useful_.

Pink lips spread as Slade unzips himself, his cock falling free. Robin braces his hands on the sides of Slade’s thighs and takes him in. The taste of precum is heavy on his tongue.

Slade is hard in seconds, and Robin chokes for the second time that day.

 

 


	8. Chained to a Bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked: Will you ever write something where maybe Bruce is watching what slade is doing to Robin and is horrified? Or maybe the titans? Or like after Robin gets rescued, they find tapes and idk Bruce or Jason or anyone's reaction and Dick just breaks down...
> 
> also for anon who asked for chained to a bed!!
> 
> themes of noncon, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, robin’s life sucks, vomiting, crying, Sexy Videos TM

“It is!” Oracle’s normally monotone voice actually shows some excitement.

Cyborg watches incredulously as the meter goes from 60% done to 70%, to 80, to 90. It slows down around 90, working its way past what must be the last of the security. He leans in, trying to quell a rising excitement that has lead to disappointment so many times before. It passes 95, only to hover for a few seconds on 99 before reaching 100.

The screen turns a bright white. Cyborg can hear Oracle’s exhale across the line just as he whoops loudly.

The white coalesces slowly, and Cyborg is unable to help himself as he tunes into the drive he’s spent days trying to crack open.

“Oh, hell. Most of this is corrupted.”

Oracle’s mouse flickers around the screen, files appearing more slowly for her. “Recovered stuff usually is. Slade’s smart - he would have tried to wipe anything that would be compromising to him. If he left in a hurry, though …” She hovers over the documents, pulling up strings of code that Cyborg doesn’t have to check to see the inconsistencies.

“Cy?” Beast Boy stands in the doorway, Raven in the darkness behind him.

“We heard yelling,” Raven clarifies.

“Oh …” Cyborg rubs his head self consciously, tilting his microphone away. “Sorry about that. I got excited.”

Beast Boy is across the room and hanging off the edge of his chair in seconds. “What happened?”

Cyborg gestures to the screen as Raven comes nearer. “Finally cracked Slade’s drive,” Cyborg tells them, even a little proudly. “He’s got some mad security.”  
“What’s in it?” Raven inquires.

“Not much,” he admits. “He was good about wiping a lot of important stuff.”

“I got something,” Oracle says suddenly. Cyborg instantly turns his attention back to the screen, holding up a finger to deter his friends. She hovers over a small folder labeled TRAINING.

Cyborg opens it. Small files line the screen, iconless.

“They’re video files,” Oracle informs him with no small measure of interest. There are rows and rows of them, each meticulously titled by date, some more than a year ago.

“Can we get them open?” he wonders. He puts up a finger to stop Beast Boy’s open mouth from asking a question. Script scrolls past the screen with a triumphant noise from Oracle.

“They’re intact,” she says. “Let’s give it a try.”

The one she chooses is labeled 12/14/09. Seconds pass after they click. Cyborg leans over to talk to his teammates. “This is probably just security footage, so don’t get your hopes up.”

Darkness fills the screen. Cyborg almost thinks its not working until it starts to fade, turning a lighter and lighter grey. The fuzz lets him know the camera is low-quality, though obviously digital. Figures form, pale skin on a dark backdrop. The camera zooms in, shaky, on someone laying on a bed. 

Cyborg sits up in his chair with a jerk the second he recognizes the figure.

“What the …”

That’s Robin.

He’s impossible to mistake, even though…

Robin isn’t wearing his mask, obvious even in almost profile. The one thing he never takes off, ever. That fact is jarring enough, but even through the grainy footage, Robin looks just plain wrong. Dark circles ring his eyes worse than Cyborg has ever seen on him before. His skin is washed out and sickly pale, the left side of his face stained with a healing purple and blue bruise. His dark hair splays on the bed shaggy and unkempt, curling in greasy strands. As the frame sharpens, the restraints that keep him on the bed become visible.

“Oh, no,” Oracle murmurs. She feels it too, the wrongness, but something -  
something stops him from hitting the exit button.

Robin seems to be asleep, and he’s naked from the waist up - the rest isn’t visible. His torso is crisscrossed with scars and ugly bruises and - bite marks?   
Something shivers down Cyborg’s spine. He hears Raven’s   
Robin’s throat is ringed with something dark, light barely glinting off of it, and Cyborg leans in to get a better look -

“I know you’re awake, Robin.”

Cyborg jerks back at the smooth voice, only to realize it’s coming from the screen. The camera steadies, and Slade enters the frame, looming over Robin in terrifying profile.

Robin’s eyes open only to shut violently again as he turns his head to the side. Cyborg can see ever desperate line of his denial from the camera. Robin tugs on his restraints, shaking his head as much as he can as he presses his cheek into the mattress.

He looks terrified, helpless, and that’s the most jarring thing, the most un-Robin part of it all: the fear that marks every crease in his suddenly small face.  
Slade approaches easily, lazily. The bed creaks as he gets onto it, one knee over each of Robin’s legs.

Unease creeps up his spine, a feeling of violation, that he shouldn’t be seeing this.

Cyborg becomes aware of Oracle’s heavy and uneven breathing over the line, becoming louder and louder.

“Are you-” he begins.

“You’ve done this before. It’s not so - difficult,” Slade interrupts from the screen. His voice takes on a tone that’s new to Cyborg, more comforting and more terrifying than he’s ever heard before.

Robin’s face snaps up. His chest rises visibly with the effort of his breathing. 

Fingers curl and uncurl. “I hate you.”

Even his voice seems broken.

Oracle’s breath rasps.

Cyborg gulps.

Slade moves forward, straddling Robin’s chest.

“Cy …” Gar says, sounding almost scared.

“I’m aware, Robin.” Amusement. “Open your mouth.”

Oracle chokes.

Raven’s power glows.

Slade’s hand goes to his crotch.

Cyborg fumbles feverishly with the mouse with a jolt of absolute horror. His fingers come close to grasping it, but it falls off the table with a loud clatter. He tries to grab it but his headset falls off and tangles him as he glares down at the floor. Raven’s gasp and Beast Boy’s horrified recoil are too loud in the room.  
The loudest thing is somehow the whimpering of Robin on the screen as Cyborg finally grabs the mouse and pulls it above, sticking his head over the top of the desk.

He hears the projectiles coming before he sees them, needlessly dodging with mechanically enhanced reflexes. The double birdarangs bury themselves inches into the computer monitor, cracks crawling along its surface like spiderwebs.  
It’s nothing compared to the cracking voice that he hears behind him, a soundless keen of anguish that fades into staccato breathing. He spins, and there stands Robin, soundlessly near screaming.

Robin seems to be choking on his own breath, Starfire standing next to him, a pale orange plaster mask of horror. Cyborg is paralyzed with indecision. Robin is the only one in the room who’s moving; he stumbles forward, catching himself on the backs of a chair shoved back.

Silence.

Robin looks straight at his friends, eyes wide with horrible emotion even behind the lenses, voice rough and prying and horrified. “How much did you see?”  
Cyborg’s mouth moves, but no sound comes out. 

Robin picks up the chair and slams it down so that the sound echoes in the space, choked and unnatural. “How MUCH did you SEE!”

They stare. Off to the side, Cyborg can see Raven’s dark, crawling power shiver across the floor, even as the girl herself stands expressionless and unusually pale.

Starfire reaches out with a shaking hand, taking a step towards Robin, fingers brushing his shoulder -

Robin screams. He spins, catching her wrist with vicious movements and pushing her away with uncharacteristic violence. 

Starfire catches herself with a step backwards, hurt dispersing across her face.  
Robin loses his balance after the fact, falling backwards, catching himself against the wall and pressing himself into it. Panicked breathing fills the room as he braces himself on the white plaster, knees bent against it.

“Robin, are you …” Beast Boy sounds hesitant for once, cautious.

Robin’s shoulders shake. He tries to say something but it’s lost in the distance, back sliding down the edge of the wall looking weaker and less sure than Cyborg has ever seen him -

except on the recording.

The one labeled out of tens of segments, of weeks of captivity.

“Christ,” he says. “Rob -”

“Y-y-you … y-you weren’t supposed to see,” Robin chokes out. He shudders against the wall, now sat on the floor with his hands clasped around his knees, trying to make himself smaller in the wake of the huge room. “Y-y-you weren’t supposed to - weren’t supposed to know.” His body is wracked with sobs. Raven takes a hesitant step forward towards him, unsure concern written on every facet of her face.

Robin jerks forwards suddenly, pushing towards the edge of the room - Cyborg isn’t sure what he’s going for until he sees the trash can. Robin gets to it in the nick of time, fingers clenched white along its rim as he heaves into it, loud and wet. Raven approaches him slowly, moving so she kneels next to him only a short distance away, hands on her thighs.

“Do you need help?”

Robin turns to stare at her, eyes wide and pained, tears dripping from underneath his mask. He doesn’t seem to even hear her as he speaks again, desperately - “He wanted - made - said I had to …” His voice trails off into choking breaths, a speck of vomit still on his chin.

“We know,” Cyborg says, as firmly and gently as he can, because if Robin can’t lead there is only him. “It’s - it’s okay.”

The words sound stupid as soon as they leave his lips, but Raven adds, “you’re safe here,” as gently as he’s ever heard her speak.

Robin curls his head into his knees, rubbing at his uniform with his fingers. He rocks slightly, forwards and back, and his hands fist in the fabric.

Cyborg hears a small noise and it takes a second for him to locate the source - the headset, still plugged in to the destroyed computer. He keeps his eyes on Robin’s small form as he picks it up, unsurprised to hear Oracle’s voice - she is, after all, one of the best hackers in the world.

“Fuck,” she breathes.

“Robin saw,” Cyborg murmurs.

“Christ,” Oracle says. She takes a rough breath he can hear even across the line, so different from her impeccably calm demeanor.

The bats are like that, strange and reserved. This is what it takes to make them fall apart, I guess.

“Is he alright?” Oracle continues.

“No,” Cyborg replies honestly. Across the room, Raven kneels in front of Robin as Beast Boy and Starfire creep up behind her. Cyborg stands up to follow them, still trailing the headset.

“It’s alright, Robin,” Raven is saying. “It’s okay. Just breathe. Azarath, metreon, zinthos.”

Robin chokes as Raven repeats her mantra, his breathing seeming to even out a little bit. He raises his head to stare up at her.

“I didn’t want to,” he says numbly. “I told him - told him to stop …” He puts his head back on his knees, knuckles white.

“We won’t let him hurt you,” Cyborg says.

“Yeah,” Beast Boy adds, something uncharacteristically hard in his voice.

“He will pay for what he did,” Starfire breathes, rage coating her every syllable. 

Robin shies away from her, and her eyes widen, but he only wraps his arms around his torso, as if trying to hold himself together through sheer muscle mass.

The TV hanging on the wall - the one Cyborg remembers installing two weeks ago at Beast Boy’s insistence - flickers on noiselessly. Everyone except Robin turns to see the abstract green mask, one Cyborg recognizes even before it speaks.

“Robin?”

His head shoots up from his hands as he flinches. It takes a second for him to speak, voice barely noticeable. “B-Oracle?”

“Give him some space,” Oracle orders, and the Titans back off at the authority in her tone. Her voice softens as she addresses Robin. “Can you talk to me?”  
He stares at her for several seconds, seemingly pondering the question, and then he nods shortly.

A pause.

Oracle sighs, long and painful.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

Robin’s face curls downwards. “I know,” he near-whispers.

“We didn’t know,” Cyborg says, and he realizes that he’s starting to feel numb himself. How long was Robin with Slade? How many times had the scene on the screen repeated itself in different ways?

You’ve done this before.

Cyborg almost feels like throwing up himself.

“He said he’d hurt you,” Robin says blankly.

“Yeah,” Beast Boy says, voice sorrowful. “Look, Robin - geez, man, if I had known-”

“Everything,” Robin snaps.

“What?”

“That’s what he did to me.” Robin’s angry voice rings with a deeper ache. “You wanted to know, didn’t you? That’s why you were watching? Well, guess what, I’ll tell you.” His voice rises. A hand rubs his hip like a nervous tic. “Every horrible fucking thing you’re imagining? He did it. He did worse. He did shit I didn’t even know you could fucking do! He laughed about it!” His expression turns to one of disgust, but it doesn’t mirror the one writ on the faces of his friends; it’s one directed towards the ground, towards his knees, towards his own flesh. It’s a face Cyborg knows well, one he’s worn too many times staring at skin meeting metal in black and white contrast. “He cut himself into my goddamn skin. He fucked me and he raped me and if you had any goddamn idea …idea what …” The anger trails into agony. “You know and you can’t - you’re never -” He chokes on his own words, and Cyborg can’t stop himself from stepping forward and trying to move down to Robin’s level.

“Robin, I - we didn’t think that … that Slade would …”

Robin chokes at the name. “He said - he said that he’d - that I had to do what he said, or else -” He fades away as his shoulders begin to shake again, even as no tears fall this time.

Or else he would hurt you. Cyborg remembers the trigger, knows the “deal” that Robin had been forced to make, and now … now he’s beginning to understand just how much Robin had done for his friends. For him.

Robin’s masked eyes bore into Cyborg’s. “I had to. He made me. And …” His fists clench on his knees as the rest of them stare at him, pain and worry and horror in their eyes. “And you … you saw … saw me . .”

“We’re sorry,” Beast Boy says. He stares at the ground. “We didn’t mean to- we just walked in …”

“Why did you … why did you have to go looking?”

“We thought it was just security footage,” Oracle says.

“Couldn’t you have just - had just - you had to see and now - and now you know -”

“We don’t think any less of you.” Oracle’s voice rings through the room, firm but full of unusual feeling.

“Really?” Robin snaps. “You really - you watched it and you saw and I - I didn’t want to do it he made me and he said - ” he takes a choking breath “ - he said he’d show it and send it and I knew that you - that you’d - that you’d see …” He trails away again, this time crying in earnest, head pressed down.

“There is no shame in being hurt,” Starfire says firmly.

“I don’t believe you.” Robin looks like he’s at war with himself, his face twitching to the side. He sounds angry, but deeper than that lurks gashing pain. “Did you look? Did you see?”

“Robin, we saw -” Beast Boy begins.

Robin goes after him. “That’s right. You looked.” He looks around at all of them. “Why did you look? WHY?”

“We didn’t know,” Cyborg says, beginning to feel like a broken record. This … to this extent … he had not imagined. He feels like he should have considered rape as a possibility.

“It could’ve been - it could’ve just … you didn’t have to - to see what …” Robin is crying again.

“We apologize,” Raven says sincerely.

There is a pause, broken only by Robin’s choking exhalations.

“How can you look at me?” Robin asks eventually, and he sounds so painfully serious it makes Cyborg hurt. 

“We’re your friends,” Cyborg says incredulously.

“I hurt you,” Robin replies.

“In order to save us,” Raven says.

“I failed! You really - you really expect me to believe you think I’m fit to lead?”

A pause.

“Whatever Slade tried to tell you,” Oracle says slowly, steadily, “he lied. He lied, Robin, he fucking lied. He lied because he wanted to hurt you. Nothing he did makes you less. Nothing. This is all - ” she takes a hitching breath - “this is all his fault. He’s Deathstroke, Robin. He had your friends. There’s nothing you could have done to stop him. And there’s nothing that he did do or could have done that changes the fact that we care about you.”

Robin bursts into tears.

Cyborg stares at him, reaches out - but Robin flinches away, sobbing in earnest now, trying to rub under his mask without taking it off.

“Leave him be,” Raven says quietly. Cyborg’s hand retracts, and for the first time since they got Robin back, he feels utterly impotent and unsure. He carries in his body enough firepower to make a small army jealous, and yet -

\- and yet. 

“Jesus,” he says.

There’s a small bit of time where they all just look at each other, and then Robin is getting up and leaning against the wall. Starfire instinctively goes to help him, but he flinches away from her, darting unsteadily towards the door. One hand holds his eyes and Cyborg realizes that his mask must have come off.  
Starfire stares after him, eyes wet, and then she follows him out.

Cyborg stares.

Useless.  
“I had no idea,” Raven murmurs.

“He, um - he was going to …” Beast Boy rubs at his lips in a kind of horror.

“We all didn’t know,” Oracle says. “Except Batman - he found him, he must’ve guessed … I’ve never seen him so angry. And he’s angry a lot.”

A weak laugh.

Cyborg stares at the monitor, still broken and cracked - salvageable, maybe. Somehow he doesn’t feel the urge right now. Instead, he walks over to it and kneels down to pick out the flash drive from its input. It’s the one with all the recordings, and he has to resist the urge to drop in on the ground as soon as his fingers touch it.

It gleams in the light.

“Should we - ”

“Yes.” Oracles voice, without hesitation.

The flash drive disintegrates between Cyborg’s metal fingers.

It’s a start.


	9. Muzzled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains: mentions of noncon, angst  
> for anonymous and anonymous 2 ;)

He wakes up aching. Beast Boy is knelt on the floor, wrists suspended far above his head with chafing chains. He’s been there a long time, because his shoulders are beginning to hurt a lot. His knees feel bruised. He lifts his head to look around - bars, grey metal, the whole shebang. Stereotypical supervillain dungeon, complete with the solid door in one corner. Gar grimaces, only to feel something around his mouth - rubber, heavy and restrictive. He moves his lips experimentally, and, when he finds that painful, crosses his eyes. Cold metal arches over is mouth, confusing him at first - a  _muzzle_ , he realizes angrily.

He can’t shapeshift.  _Slade’s doing._

Gar shakes his head like an angry dog to loosen it. His chains rattle. When he realizes how it must look he hisses in frustration.

_Jerk._  It’s just like Slade to mock him and his abilities like this. Not that Gar isn’t used to be compared to something less than human, oh no. Slade is just another in a long line.

The door opens slowly, aching on its hinges. Robin steps in, hair hanging in strands about his pale face. He’s still clad in Slade’s colors.

“Robin!” Beast Boy can’t help himself, even though the words come out a bit slurred. He can only open his mouth so far. It aches to speak, but he doesn’t bother to contain his enthusiasm, his utter relief. “You’re alive!”

Robin looks up, mask still intact. Gar’s face aches with relief. “We thought - we worried …”

Robin rubs his forearms, stares off to the side as he approaches. “We have to get you out of here,” he murmurs, glancing at the bars and the locks.

“Dude, I’ll be fine!” Gar can’t stop grinning - or the equivalent he can manage with a muzzle. He hasn’t seen Robin - one of his best friends - in months he’s spent agonizing over him.  "I’m here to break you out of here.“ 

Something that looks like a smile ghosts over Robin’s face where there would, months ago, have been a grin. His lips turn down to a thin frown seconds later. “Beast Boy, I - I can’t.” He feels sick, because he really, truly, has been praying for nothing more than to see the sun.

“What?” Gar’s enthusiasm wanes. “But I’m here! We found you, and we’re going to come and get you once -”

“No.”

Gar is unsure of himself for half a second, almost double taking against the wall. “Rob, what … why?”

Robin steps forward desperately, as near as he can be to his friend without touching the cold bars of the cage. He fumbles with words he hasn’t used in weeks, trying to make him understand - even though he truly can’t, not without putting him in (more) danger from Slade. “I - I can’t go. I  _have_  to stay here. I can’t tell you -”

“We’ve been looking for ages! Star is going crazy without someone to bother.” A pause. They look at each other, familiar enough friends for Robin to know that Gar is more distraught than he lets on, for Gar to know that Robin has changed. Gar almost sounds like the child he is when he next speaks. “You - you’re not - you haven’t  _really_  left us, have you?”

“No!”  _Never._  Robin grabs on to the bars of the cage. “You -  you don’t understand -”

And how could he possibly? The trigger that Slade holds over his head whenever he so much as looks at him wrong, threatening the people he holds dear? The nights where Robin has been left alone with his fear and his pain - or, worse, the ones where Slade forces him into his bed and takes him again and again?  _It’s all for you!_  he wants to scream.

“You’re right.” Gar’s voice is harder now, angry and in pain. He can’t, doesn’t understand why Robin - the leader, the one they rely on, the most  _trained_  of them would just … abandon his team .“Why are you here? What are you  _doing_? Did he mind control - or, or puppets, or …" 

"No - it’s not, it’s not that, it - I didn’t want this, I didn’t want any of it, but -” Robin’s stuttering cuts off.

“But what? Because you look like you’re on the wrong side of the bars to  _me_.” He doesn’t mean it, knows he doesn’t (he shouldn’t, he can’t, that can’t be real) but the anger and the pain of losing him rears up.

With a yell of frustration, Robin kicks the cell, rattling the bars. Beast Boy starts, his own chains rattling. Robin jumps away on one foot, glaring and grimacing. “You know what - shut up. Just shut up, okay?” He takes a raspy, wet breath, and then all the fight seems to go out of him as he sags against the side wall, outlined in orange and fabric-black. He realizes he wants to cry, wants to scream - yet guilt washes over him as he sees Gar flinch back. “You know - you know what -” he chokes on his own words, pressing them out between his teeth as his eyes burn. “You-you’re right.”

“R-Robin?”

Robin’s fists clench. “I’m with Slade. I-I-I’m- I’m his apprentice. Now. You need to tell them that. Not to come back. Ever.”

“Robin - you can’t be -”

Robin feels hot tears trail down his cheeks. “Leave. I’m going to - to make you leave. And then you - you go back and you tell them …” He’s unable to finish, unable to go through with it. He breaks down into halting sobs against the side wall. He  _knows_  he should be strong, knows he needs to let his friends go for their own good. “T-tell them that I’m not -” But he’s not strong enough, too selfish to leave him, the one friend that he’s seen in months. He can’t deny that just seeing his face has given him hope that he hasn’t had in a long time.

_Robin can’t say it._

He can’t cut his last chance for freedom, can’t make it  _final_.

More than anything, Robin hates himself for that.

“ … Robin?” Gar has given up being angry. “Are you .  . .”

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Robin says roughly. “Especially not alone.” The fear he saw when he walked into the room is still lingering behind him, crushed beneath his apathy.

So far as he knows, however, Slade is only … sexually interested … in him. Which means Gar is safe - but that could change at any time. He’s never been as good at predicting Slade as he wishes he was.

“I was a  _scout_!” Gar insists. His eyes narrow. “I was looking for you.” There’s something off about Robin, something the behavior he’s making can’t quite quantify -

_Or maybe you just don’t want to believe he’s a traitor_.

“Shouldn’t have,” Robin mumbles again. He wipes angrily at his face, salty tears stinging shallow cuts. Gar stares at him from his strange position, grimacing in his muzzle. It makes him look small and vulnerable and almost inhuman with his green skin.

Robin hates it, hates that Slade is doing even a little bit of what he does to him to one of his friends.

“I’m sorry,” he says sadly.

“Yeah, well. If you’re so sorry for leaving you should come home.”

Robin aches.

There is a pause then, Robin slipping down the wall to sit on the ground of the room. It’s dirty, but he’s used to that. Gar tries to shift in his bonds, clanking them. Robin knows that there’s only so long he can spend here before Slade finds him - probably hurts him - but it’s been so _long_  since he’s had any human contact with anyone but Slade.

“Can you at least get this thing off?” Gar grumbles, jerking his head to the side to indicate his muzzle.

Robin shakes his head. “He doesn’t give me the keys.” A pause. “He - he gagged me too. A few weeks ago.”

“What did  _you_ do?”

“I tried to bite him.”

“Wait, seriously?”

Robin feels slightly nauseous even thinking about it. He’d been so angry at Slade -  _What would your friends think if they saw you_  now,  _hmm?_  - that it had felt worth it at the time.

Right up until Slade started carving into his skin, prying open his mouth.

“It was stupid,” he mutters. Robin presses his head against his knees, staring down at orange turning to black as he gets too close. He yearns for the times when he fought back against every order, every blow, every demand. Those were times when he could feel heroic, meaningful, hopeful.

Now, he just tries to survive.

Gar just stares at him, expression strange, and Robin hurts. He knows that Gar remembers him as someone willing to fight back, to never give up, to do his best - and Robin  _hasn’t_  given up. He  _hasn’t_.

He just … he’s biding his time, that’s all. Until he can take Slade down without hurting his friends. Robin sighs, wondering if this visit is just making him feel worse about it all, but -

it’s selfish and stupid to be down here in the first place, but it sustains some part deep in his soul that wanted to see his friends, somewhere where they aren’t directly fighting. It’s given him strength he desperately needs to fight Slade, a little bit of respite for a soul that feel so, so tired.

Robin sighs, getting up and crossing the room to the door, heavy and metal. He’ll pay for this eventually, painfully, but - he can’t bring himself to regret it.

Not yet.

“Robin?” Hesitant, tired.

“Yeah?”

“Come back to us,” Gar pleads.

Robin closes his eyes, fingers clenching in and out, crescents in his fingers. His eyes burn, tears of real sorrow instead of terror or despair, and his shame of them makes him refuse to face Gar. “I’m sorry,” he says, again, for something that he did not ask for, and then he is gone.


	10. Shock Collar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous on tumblr requested shock collar!!! :3c  
> no warnings on this one

The thing comes at him from the shadows like a hurricane, all darkness except for the glinting of bright light off of double knives. They’re the only thing that gives him away, Robin’s keen eyes picking up the glinting in the warehouse shadows before he’s attack. He jumps back, throwing up dust. A knife flashes dangerously close to his jugular, splitting green fabric. Robin flips back, deploying his bo, furiously blocking the strikes. The figure doesn’t let up, only grunting and hissing in frustration. They’re much smaller here in the light compared to the towering containers, barely bigger than Robin’s short height.

“That’s new,” Robin comments to himself. They’re not a sladebot he knows, much too big to be Slade, Red X wouldn’t hide himself like this. “ _Who_  are you?” He ducks what would have been a disabling blow, jumping to the side and propelling himself to the side. His opponent is good.

“Shut up.” The reply is unexpected coming from - well - a mysterious hooded figure, rough and angry. Male, rough, and furious. Movements become more erratic as it turns to face him. A knife slams into the  _bo_.

“I’m not here - ” Robin ducks, and god, this person is really good. Overly aggressive, but - he always seems to know where Robin is going to parry next.  _Nothing I can’t take. I’ve taken Slade, remember?_ “ - to fight you. No need for - ”

“I’m going to _kill_  you.” The words send shivers down Robin’s spine as attacker flips away, jacket fluttering in the air to reveal orange beneath. With Slade? The man levels one of his combat knives at Robin’s neck and speaks with a low intensity. “I’m going to slash your neck and your wrists and your thighs and I’m going to watch you bleed out.”

Robin drops further into his stance, refusing to be cowed by the threat. “Your master’s tried before.” Not technically true. Not that this schmuck would know.  
An incoherent growling shriek fills the air before Robin is forced back by inches, frantically parrying. Cuts slash open on his forearms, thighs, one narrowly missing his face as Robin hisses. He’s left cornered against one of the packages before he knows it, his enemy closing in.

“I’ve been thinking of killing you for  _months_ ,” the other growls. Knives flash, one still dripping blood. Eyes shine under the hood. “Nobody can take this away *from ME!*” The rest of the words hitch strangely. If Robin didn’t know better, he’d say it was a -

Robin’s head pushes to the side in seconds to avoid a knife burying itself in the wood next to him

\- a sob?

Robin pushes himself off before the figure can yank the knife out of the woodwork. The fall to the ground together, a nasty hit against the cold concrete. Robin presses his bo against the thing’s neck only to feel cold steel pressing into his thigh. He rolls with a hiss, bringing the  _bo_  down on his enemy’s body. The man doesn’t make noise at the pain, leveraging a hand under it before Robin can apply much pressure. Robin is yanked forward with a yell, falling again over the prone form, knife in front of him -

Robin slams the wrist into the ground with a grunt. The knife falls out of stiff fingers. “I think you’ve got the wrong person.”  _That’s one huge obsession._

“I know you better than you know you,” the figure says. He’s limp now, staring up into Robin’s face. Robin frowns, fingers going for the hood, only to be caught at the wrist. “ _Don’t_.” Robin ignores them, leaning over to apply both hands with downward pressure -

“Who are you?” -

Blue eyes set in ghostly skin stare back at him, framed by limp locks. A mirror, if Robin had spent the last three months in a cave. “What …”

The knife comes back up at him and Robin is on his feet, trying not to reel in shock as someone bearing his own face barrels at him with vicious blue eyes.  _Is that what I look like when I’m angry?_  he thinks but he has no time to consider it before he’s slammed into with painful force. His enemy has lost his knives but he’s just as intent on killing Robin as he ever was, flipping and kicking. Robin steps back again only to feel a burning pain in his thigh -  _the knife wound_. It’s dripping slowly, getting faster, and oh  _damn_  he must’ve hit a vein. Robin winces and hopes it’s not fatal.

“Who are you?” he repeats, forcefully this time, staring into the pale, dead face of his double. They’re not quite like him, a few inches taller, a few pounds lighter. The fabric of the covering recedes and Robin can see Slade’s symbol on his breast. He was right. A clone, maybe? They look almost as if …

As if …

As if Robin had never stopped being Slade’s apprentice …

_I know you better than you know you._

“Who the hell are you?” Robin snaps.

“I am  _ten times worse_  than your worst nightmare,” Not-Robin snarls. He circles, the look in his eyes like that of a feral dog. He sneers. “You’re so  _stupid._  You have no idea …  _no idea_  …” He takes a heaving breath. “Just stand down and let me  _kill you_.”

Robin’s fingers press against the warm blood on his thigh. “Hey! No killing. I’m sure if you just calm - ”

“Don’t.” The voice is low, anger stripped suddenly from it. “Please don’t.” He steps back to where his knife has fallen, judging at it with his foot but not daring to pick it up. “Just … shut up.”

“Look - if you’re me or something - I mean, I know how Slade can be -” Buying time. The situation’s not good.

The rasping noise that chokes out of the boy’s mouth is a horrible sound that Robin takes several seconds to recognize as laughter, stopping him short. “No,” the boy says. “No, you don’t. You have - none. Nothing.” A pause. “And unless you  _stand down_  you’ll have to find out.”

“You’re his apprentice,” Robin realizes, finalizes. “You’re  _me_. From another - ”

“From the future,” Future Robin says. He doesn’t sound nearly so intimidating now that Robin recognizes the lilting tones of his own voice, albeit strange and out of tune. “Our future.”

Robin feels cold. “So - what, you’re saying - I would never …”  _Work for Slade? But I have._  "… kill myself - kill  _anyone_  - for Slade.“

“I’m not here because of Slade.”

“Then why - ”

“Listen to me,” Not-Robin’s voice shudders, stutters, breaks. “You have to listen to me. Death - death is better. Anything is better.” He stares at Robin, eyes imploring. Robin finds himself pinned. The other yanks at his sleeves, orange and grey, and Robin can almost make out the white roping scars. “I tried. I swear I - you have to listen to me. Please. You won’t be able to stop it.” A choking sob. “You won’t be able to stop him. Not from anything.”

“What did he - ”

“What didn’t he!” Not-Robin snaps. “What he threatened, what he  _didn’t_ , what - what I could never have expected …”

Robin’s frozen body pins him to the ground.  _No. No, no …_  - because Slade is the worst and the most dangerous and the one villain that has brought him closer to ruin and a life of horror, a life without his friends. 

What he threatened. To kill them all. To make Robin watch.

He tries desperately to recall the lessons Bruce has taught him on time travel. “The future isn’t … isn’t set in stone.” A calming breath.

“ … it’s writ in blood.” Not-Robin finishes the saying, in argument. 

“You don’t have to listen to him,” Robin says. “No matter what he says. You can … you don’t have to let this happen.” He stares into the eyes of his double, trying to imbue them with life. “You’re a  _hero_.”

The blue eyes water. Tears bead in them, blinked away by long lashes. “I was,” he says softly. The jaw clenches. “You don’t want it to happen either. But you won’t be able to stop it.”

Blood sputters down Robin’s leg, between his fingers. “Now that I know - ”

“You can’t fight Slade,” Not-Robin tells him. His voice is blank, factual, as if citing a particular law of the universe - water is wet, an object in motion stays in motion, Slade is invincible.

“But I did,” Robin says. “*We* did.” He finds himself pitying his future self, so lost and so in pain. “We won, remember?”

“That,” the other says, “is what he wants you to think.” He moves in a flash, coming at Robin so unexpectedly that Robin only has time to duck inches to the side - but he’s not the target, Not-Robin grasping at the knife sunk in the wood and yanking it out. It’s slightly bent, but still so lethal in the right hands.

_Is this what I become?_  A jolt of anger shocks Robin, perhaps fear.

“So that’s what I turn into? Another killer? Just because - because what? Because Slade got the better of - ”

Not-Robin snarls. Up here, up close, Robin can see more of him, the clothes he wears in Slade’s colors. Light glints off of the collar - black, with silver lettering.  
SLADE.

It sends an inexplicable, horrible shudder down Robin’s spine. It lets his opponent get to him, flipping off the side of the shelves to behind him, pressing the knife dangerously against the side of his neck as Robin’s hands come up to block.

“Don’t move.” Heavy, furious breaths in his ear that makes Robin’s hair stand on end. “This wasn’t my  _choice_. Do you think I want this? I like this?” A broken, horrifying sob, then soft words - hestant, hollow. “I’m still enough of me to do this. To stop it. If I wait too long, that’ll be gone, too.” The knife presses in.  
Robin feels his heart pounding in his ears, fingers moving down and towards his belt for the birdarang -

“Don’t do this - ”

“I’m sorry,” Not-Robin says. Sincerity threads through his voice. The knife presses into Robin’s throat as Robin breathes shallowly. “You’d thank me, if you’d lived it.” A pause. “You should’ve talked to Star. She loves you, you know. You love her too, even if you don’t know yet.”

“She … she what?”  He can’t stop himself, the mortality of the situation momentarily pushed aside for  _Star_. 

Not-Robin screams in his ear, shocking him. The knife shakes, yanking a red line over Robin’s neck. It falls from stiff fingers as Not-Robin’s cries trail off into choking noise. Robin spins. His former attack writhes on the floor, grasping at his throat, before going limp. Choking sobs echo up from the ground, the boy clawing at his throat -

at the collar on it, black and unforgiving. Robin’s fingers go to his own throat, but the wound is only deep enough to bleed.

“Nice try, apprentice.”

Robin spins. His hands flicker up to the front of his face at the tone, the oh so familiar moniker. Slade stands there, hand on a trigger, leaning lightly against one of the warehouse stacks. Robin’s struck with deja vu so intense it almost makes him dizzy, or maybe that’s just the blood slipping through the fingers on his thigh - either way, Slade’s not talking to him.

He’s talking to the boy on the floor.

“Slade,” Robin hisses. “What did you do this time?”

“What  _will_  I do,” Slade corrects. “I’m afraid I’m not here for you, Robin.” He approaches, coiled and dangerous. Robin’s eyes follow him as he passes, narrowing. Robin knows he’s not in any shape to fight Slade. The man leans over the prone boy, boots pushing him out of his curled shape. “I wanted to know if you would really try to go through with it. I have to say, you almost managed to live up to my expectations.”

“Give it up,” Robin snarls. “I don’t believe you. Whatever game you’re playing-”  
“All I’m here to do is take what’s mine and leave,” Slade interrupts, not turning. “Believe it or not, I’m not here to fight you.”

“Yeah.” Robin takes a breath. “I can’t let you leave with him - ”

“No.” Not-Robin is on his forearms now, muscles spasming. Shock collar, Robin realizes, something sick in him. Like an animal. The voice is is tired and hollow. “No, don’t … don’t bother.” He sitting up now, trying to get to his feet, muttering weakly. “I … I’ll go.”

Defeat?

“Just like that? You’re just going to - to let him - ”

“It’s easier,” Not-Robin pleads. He stumbles to his feet, still shaking, and for several seconds Robin isn’t sure if he’s going to fall on his face. “You don’t understand - I can’t …”

“Look, I don’t know what kind of - kind of game you’re playing, Slade, but I don’t believe it.” If he’s convinced, he doesn’t show it, voice coming out much shakier than he had imagined. “If you want to convince me that I’ll ever - ever obey you …”

Not-Robin is shaking his head furiously, hands fisting at his sides. He opens his mouth to speak again but Slade’s hand, so large against his small body, lands on his shoulder. Robin can almost feel the weight from his position.

“That’s not me,” Robin murmurs. “That’s not me, Slade!” Robin’s face twists, neck burning from the cut. “Not me, not *ever*. He almost convinced me, but - I wouldn’t - I’d never …" 

_Never be that … broken._

Not-Robin just stares, eyes blue, and Robin realizes that the glint in his eye is a tear. It’s blinked away before it means anything at all.  
Slade’s fingers hook in his apprentice’s collar, roughly pulling him along on unsteady feet. "Never’s a strong word, hm?” Robin can hear the grin as he growls back, watching the two of them leave, something he can’t explain shuddering down the back of his neck.

He stands there in the warehouse, left in the aftermath of the sheer unreality of the situation, staring at the dull light streaming in through the windows.

Then he picks up his comm and calls Starfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um! so i just want to say that this project has been me, for the first time, writing regularly in like..... ever! and i'm blown away that some people choose to comment every chapter or even at all!!! i just thought i should say thanks to everyone because YALL ARE THE REAL MVPS OK!!! i'm so glad y'all show up for the angst.


	11. Slammed Into A Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven finds Robin, and he claims the impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested by skeletoncloset on tumblr, amsves here!  
> krimony requested - I do have a short request; whether you follow through or not is completely up to you, so feel free to decline- I get it! But maybe a scene where the Titans are with fighting with Robin maybe a year or two later- still broken up about his apparent betrayal but loyal to their duties. I figured that at some point or another, they’d realize that that Robin is actually in immense pain and never says anything to them. Robin would fall over in exaustion or something and the team would realize whatever shit Slade’s been putting him through (whatever that is is up to you) Or maybe if they aren’t in a fight, he somehow escapes Slade and is just trying to escape to his nearest safe place?  
> (so merry new year you sappy commenters that want robin to be Saved....)  
> content: references to rape/noncon

Raven can feel the movement around her even when she stares at the dark behind her eyelids. It’s a sixth sense of sorts, the part of her brain that can feel the living things moving through the air around her. This is the kind of thing she feels when she’s meditating, and now . . . the mind is muddled, angry. Dangerous and vicious and out for blood. Not one of her teammates, not even Beast Boy when Kori has stolen his tofu for one of her more exotic recipes.

            Raven drops to the floor in a swirl of black and purple, lighting on it. Her hand goes to the Titans transmitter, but something she can’t name stops her from pressing it as she pokes her head out into the hallway. Half-demon eyes slice through the darkness. She can feel the presence just around the corner, furious and—in pain?

            “Who’s there?”

            A shadow lunges across one of the curves of the hallway, standing in tall silhouette before curling in on itself. Something drips—dark red. Blood.

            Hands twine with dark power. “Show yourself.” The mind jerks, moves. The shadow steps into the light.

            The former leader of the Teen Titans stands in silhouette. Robin’s hair hangs in dark strands down a pale, drawn face. Orange and black blend into the background, making him look like he’s half darkness and half Slade. The garish orange is stained red, liquid dripping from Robin’s hand—a hand that reaches for Raven like claws.

            Lips move but Raven pays them no mind. Hands fist and dark power moves and Robin is slammed into the wall with an viciously loud sound. Raven can hear him choking, careless of it, eyes burning with white fire.

“ _You_.”

            Robin struggles halfheartedly and as Rabin stalks towards him she can see that he’s hurt, one hand torn away from a wound in his side. Masked eyes narrow in pain.

            “Rae—” he croaks.

            “Where is Slade?” Raven hisses, hand on her communicator. “I know he came here with you. Where is he?”

            “He’s not—”

            “Don’t lie to me.” Raven’s voice is flat, emotionless once again. “Haven’t you lied enough?”

            “He’s dead.”

            Raven’s grip on him loosens just enough for Robin to sag forward, not even bothering to try to escape as he tries once again to staunch the blood in the wound at his side. It drips through his fingers. “Rae, I—I killed him.” His voice is strange, a mix of things Raven can’t name.

            Raven’s finger hovers over the communicator, not quite pressing down. “You don’t get to call me that.”

            Robin looks up at her and something tears inside her, something she knows should be long gone. _Don’t fall for his tricks. He betrayed you. Remember how he tried to kill us._

There’s no chance of her forgetting that.

            “He’s dead.” Robin’s voice is dull. He almost seems surprised as he looks down at the blood on the floor.

            “Only a matter of time before you got tired of him like you do with everyone else,” Raven says icily. Kori would be shocked if she thought Robin had killed someone, but Raven’s not even sure he’s telling the truth.

            It’s not unbelievable, unfortunately.

            Robin’s mouth opens slightly as he looks at her, about to say something—

            Raven is close to him now, horribly close, looking right into the eyes of a leader and a friend she had trusted with her life. One of the first people she had truly cared about.

            A traitor like no other.

            “Tell me,” she says, nowhere as perfectly calm as she wishes, unable to stop the bitterness from threading its way through her voice, “were we not enough for you? Was having a team who trusted you and friends who cared about you just not _worth it_? What was it that Slade offered you that your _friends_ couldn’t?”

            Robin stares at her. His breath hitches, he licks his lips—

            Raven isn’t ready for how heartbroken he sounds.

            “He was—was going to kill you.”

            She stares.

            “He—he had a trigger, and he had his finger on it and—and he made—made me—”

            Tears dribble out of the corners of Robin’s mask, unreal in the light.

            Raven’s voice wavers. Her powers waver. Robin falls to the ground with a gasp of pain.

            “Kill . . . me?”

            “Kill all of you,” Robin rasps. “Unless I did what he wanted. Everything he wanted. Forever.”

            Raven stares at him, bleeding on the floor, trying to stop her mind from racing and the small voice inside of her that hasn’t forgotten about her friend from screaming.

            _He’s . . ._

_He’s saying that . . ._

Robin stares up at her. He looks so wrong, bent over at her feet, choking on his words. “I didn’t want to hurt you. To do any of it. He said—said he’d kill you.” He chokes on a sob. “I didn’t want to. I’m sorry.”

            Raven takes a breath.

            Lets words that hurt everything about her, everything she wants to believe pass her lips.

            “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

            Robin looks up at her, eyes wide. A tear drips down his cheek, hits the blood on the floor. He shudders, shifts. “I’m—we’re friends. Raven, we’re friends, and I couldn’t—wouldn’t let him hurt you, and he had nanobots and they’re in your blood and I—please, Rae, you have to believe me—”

            “ . . . friends?”

            He stares at her with wide, almost broken eyes. Nothing like the Robin she knew years ago, nothing like the angry one she’s been fighting for months. “We’re friends—we—I—I did all this, he _made_ me do all this, I had to—because we’re friends, and . . . and I couldn’t . . ."

            It’s too good to be true, too unreal to be true, and Raven pinches herself _hard_ to make sure she’s not dreaming of this again, wishing so hard for Robin to come back and be himself again. That it was all just a silly mistake, and the real Robin was waiting to pop out from behind the curtain and save them all from Slade again.

            “You’re saying that he blackmailed you. For . . . years?”

            Robin’s eyes widen, a hand grasping at her arm. She pulls away on instinct, and his hand falls, eyes turning towards the ground. “The nanobots. You can check them—they’re still in your system. Ask Cy, see if he has—has any way to get them out. I destroyed the transmitter, but—” Robin looks up at her again, insistence in his eyes, “you have to be _sure_.”

            _Can he—_

_Is he telling the truth?_

Raven probes almost without noticing, pulling at the edges of his mind to find the intent and the reason. Robin narrows his eyes but doesn’t resist, shifting again in the place he sits.

            Her mind trails through the edges of his, familiar paths now twisted and rocky from the months away, dark enough that dread almost bothers to build in her—

            No deceit.

            Just pain, pressed back by a wall of will, threatening to overwhelm.

            _Oh._

            Something peeks out from his shoulder, more reddened scars. Raven leans forward over him to get a better look as he murmurs to himself. The uniform he wears is torn at the shoulder, half of the sleeve hanging off.

            _Words_?

            Robin notices her looking, a panic flashing across his face as he tries to cover his shoulder, smearing blood from his wound over the bruised skin in the process.

            “What’s that?”

            “’Snothing,” Robin mutters. “The nanobots—”

            “Show me.” Raven looks at him, eyes narrowing at his masked ones. Her voice brooks no argument. “Unless you want me to—”

            Robin rubs at the blood with his wrist, something almost indescribable on his face as he pulls the uniform aside to reveal more scars. These are old ones, white and ropy and in the form of . . . letters?

            _V, V, H?_

No, that’s a _W_ , she realizes Robin doesn’t meet her eyes, staring at the floor as Raven reaches out a hand hesitantly, barely brushing him in her effort. Fingers grasp at the black fabric—

            _W, H,_

_O, R, E_

A word.

_WHORE._

There in reddened, painful scars. Raven’s brow creases, processes. “Robin . . .”

            Robin’s face screws up into something pathetic, so removed from the little bits of Robin that Raven remembers. His voice is barely there at all. “He . . . made – had me – I had to – he said that if I didn’t . . .”

            _Whatever he wanted._

“X’hal,” Raven breathes. She feels something crack inside her, something that hasn’t moved in months and years, as she stares at Robin’s pale face. He moves slowly, looking up at her. The domino mask is crooked, revealing a dark, furrowed brow, lips slightly parted. Raven doesn’t move as fingers brush her neck, slick blood in fingerprints on her cheek. Robin’s hand trails down, soft and without malice.

            She can feel him now, the almost-familiar mind—one in more pain than she has ever realized, coalesced in the back of it behind the thinking and the fury, It uncurls from its slumber, twisting and fraying in his psyche. Dark power shakes the walls slightly, spreading from Raven’s heels and coursing in the building, too much emotion to keep in.

            “I’m sorry,” Robin says miserably.

            “No,” Raven murmurs. “ _I’m_ sorry.”

            He almost looks surprised when she wraps her arms around him.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to request bingo squares on my [tumblr!](https://gothamtrashparty.tumblr.com/tagged/freak-fic)


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